New Model Of Health Care Taking Root, Whether Or Not Obamacare Survives

Bruce Japsen
, ContributorI write about healthcare business and policyOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

No matter what happens to President Obama’s health care law sitting before the Supreme Court, fee-for-service medicine may still morph into a new model of health care delivery his administration is pushing that rewards doctors and hospitals for working together to improve quality.

A key part of the Affordable Care Act launched this spring with the first groups of medical-care providers forming Accountable Care Organizations across the country. These so-called ACOs began contracting this month with the Medicare program to be paid for caring for a population of seniors.

If the ACOs can improve quality and reduce the cost of care to the group of seniors they are caring for, medical providers get to share money saved. Earlier this week, Jonathan Blum, deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said more than 1 million Medicare beneficiaries are now served by ACOs and participation from doctors and hospitals is off to a “phenomenal start.”

Though ACOs providing coordinated care to seniors covered by Medicare could be thwarted if the Supreme Court strikes down the overhaul as unconstitutional, that is not going to stop the rush to form these ventures in the private sector.

Take one of the largest medical-care providers in the Midwest, Aurora Health Care, which is forging ahead.

"Aurora Health Care is committed to meaningful reform from the inside out, and we will forge ahead regardless of what the Court decides about the health care reform law,” said Dr. Nick Turkal, president and chief executive officer of Aurora Health Care, a Milwaukee-based system of 15 hospitals and more than 1,400 employed physicians in Wisconsin.